Category Archives: Speaking

On May 31st, I was shocked to find out one of my submitted sessions was selected for PASS Summit 2018. My response?

I didn’t see this coming. At all. I was stunned – walking around at the office, saying “Oh my gosh…I got picked” while co-workers looked at me like I had lost my mind. Literally.

I thought I would be going to PASS Summit this year, but not as a speaker. I thought I would be an attendee, learning a lot and having an amazing time. I thought it was far more likely that we see 10 feet of snow this winter in Texas than I would be selected for this year’s PASS Summit.

I am sincerely humbled and grateful to be selected. The competition was stiff. I should know – just like last year, I pulled all the data while it was still available. Once the selections were announced I was able to isolate the sessions from those submitted, and also isolate the ones that were not selected. I was able to determine one particular number – how many sessions were selected out of total submissions.

90. 90 sessions were selected out of approximately 600 submitted. I might be off by a few, but I also checked this against ones that are there but I didn’t have in the data pull from immediately following the closing of submissions. For the most part, the ones that are there that didn’t match with a submission are pre-cons or sessions from what I am assuming were invited speakers.

I’m not saying any of this is bad. What I am saying is that the competition among PASS Summit submissions is growing and becoming more fierce. I see this as a positive for the community – we are developing more and more excellent speakers with awesome content to share.

I queried my data set further, looking for the names of the people selected and those not selected. I found the latter to contain many speakers I know personally, who would make amazing PASS Summit speakers, and may have already done so in the past.

I pulled the list of the speakers that had sessions that were part of the “Best Of” from PASS Summit 2017. Out of 36 speakers from that list, 13 of those are currently part of 2018 PASS Summit lineup. While it could be said that all of these people should be on this year’s roster because they were part of the “Best Of” from last year, I think the only thing that can really be taken away from this number is the fact that no one is guaranteed a speaking spot at PASS Summit, no matter who you are.

Are there invited speakers? Yes, but like the regular submissions selection, that list likely has some subjectivity to it as well. Maybe an invited speaker gets red carded in the previous year following their session (heaven forbid, but you never know) – do you think they would be invited back? I would hope not, regardless of the content they would provide.

As speakers in the SQL community, we are largely a very goal oriented, driven bunch of people. We might even be a tad competitive. It’s not lost on me how fortunate I am to have been selected this year. Looking back to previous years when my submissions didn’t make the cut, I know now that while this was something that I wanted, I wasn’t ready. I might have been grumpy about it, but that didn’t make me any more ready for this monumental task. For all the seasoned PASS Summit speaker veterans that were not selected, you of all people know how competitive this is. You also know that your time will come again.

Selected or not, I hope to see everyone at PASS Summit this year. If you haven’t registered yet, and need a discount code, I got one of those for ya!LSDIS97QR

The price for PASS Summit goes up after June 29th so if you are planning on attending, get registered now!

Note: I am on the board of directors for the North Texas SQL Server User Group and this is our code. Registering with this code benefits our group. There are other discount codes out there but I just gave you this one. Like, right now. See? There it is. So go register and use it!

Back in 2013 I attended my first PASS Summit. I was a first timer and Bill Fellows was my “big brother.” I had no clue what I was getting myself into. This is my story on how I became a speaker.

At my first summit, thanks to Bill, I was meeting people just about from the moment I got there. Bill knew lots of people. He’s tall and bald and hard to miss. And wears shorts. Everywhere. Regardless of temperature.

Where was I…oh yeah…speaking. While at summit that year I met and talked to many people. A few of them asked me “Have you ever thought about speaking?” I politely replied that I hadn’t, but I really wanted to ask them if they had forgotten their medication that day, or if they needed to be examined by a professional. Me – a speaker. LOLOLOLOLOLOL! Bless their hearts!

But then I thought about it. Why not speak? What would I talk about? What was something cool that I had done that people would want to know about? Could I do this? I showed people how to properly gift wrap a present in speech class (oh yes I did…and there is a right way…and you’re probably doing it wrong) – could I teach them something that would actually have some career benefit?

Yes. Yes I could.

I started to think about what I could talk about. I submitted a session to a SQL Saturday event later in 2013…and I was not selected. I didn’t know it at the time but I had picked a topic that was rather niche and would not have a real following. I found this out when I went to the event (yes, I still went…I was going to this one regardless) and talked to the organizers. This also allowed them to know who I was, so when I submitted again, they would be able to put a face with the name.

The following year I submitted a panel to a different SQL Saturday…and they picked it! This allowed me to get my feet wet while having some other more seasoned speakers there to help drive the conversation. In the weeks leading up to the event, we met and ironed out the details of what we would talk about. During those meetings I learned a lot from them, and they helped make that first session for me a success.

As a speaker, there are good days…and not good days.

A few months later I did my first solo session – and it did not go well. This was a tough pill to swallow. What happened? Simply put, my session didn’t reflect my abstract. I was disappointed in myself. It takes a few days for me to get over things like this, but since this was my first solo attempt, it really made me question whether or not I wanted to do this. Could I be good at this? I went home and re-wrote the session. Then looked at it and re-wrote it again. The next time I gave this session it went much better, and my feedback reflected it.

I love things that challenge me. Speaking does this, and does it in ways I would have never imagined. It takes me out of my comfort zone. No matter where I am for the foreseeable future, I will be speaking.

Speaking has taken my love of learning new things to the next level. Not only am I learning for the sake of a problem or making a business case for something, but now I am learning with a goal or being able to facilitate the learning of others. When I refine my skills, my session material gets better too.

My passions have found an outlet with speaking. It’s thrilling and sometimes frustrating. When you are speaking you never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes you have a lot of questions from the audience. Other times you have none. Sometimes you don’t know the answer. As much as you practice, it doesn’t change the fact that as many times as you give a certain session, no two of those are alike because no two audiences are alike. The one thing that is consistent is that the more times I am able to speak, the more people I am able to reach and help improve their SQL Server skill sets or adopt a new skill set with PowerShell. I don’t know where speaking is going to take me, but for now, I’m down for the ride to find out.

If you are interested in speaking, and would like to find out more, here are a few blog posts I found on this subject.